A novel of time, trauma, and terror by “a writer of spectacularly unflinching gifts [who] leaves most contemporary horror writing in the dust” (Peter Straub).
“You wouldn’t think events happening years apart, at points in the solar system hundreds of millions of miles distant, would have anything to do with each other.”
When she was six, Daphne was taken into a neighbor’s toolshed, and came within seconds of never coming out alive. Most of the scars healed. Except for the one that went all the way through.
“You wouldn’t think that the serial murders of children, and the one who got away, would have any connection with the strange fate of one of Jupiter’s moons.”
Two decades later, when Daphne goes missing again, it’s nothing new. As her exes might agree, running is what she does best. So her brother Tanner sets out one more time to find her. Whether in the mountains, or in his own family, search-and-rescue is what he does best.
“But it does. It’s all connected. Everything’s connected.”
Down two different paths, along two different timelines, Daphne and Tanner both find themselves trapped in a savage hunt for the rarest people on earth, by those who would slaughter them on behalf of ravenous entities that lurk outside of time.
“So when things start to unravel, it all starts to unravel.”
But in ominous signs that have traveled light-years to be seen by human eyes, and that plummet from the sky, the ultimate truth is revealed: There are some things in the cosmos that terrify even the gods.
We each inhabit many worlds, often at the same time. From worlds on the inside, to the world on a cosmic scale. Worlds imposed on us, and worlds of our own making.
In time, though, all worlds will end. Bear witness:
After the death of their grandmother, two cousins return to their family’s rural homestead to find a community rotting from the soul outward, and a secret nobody dreamed their matriarch had been keeping.
The survivors of the 1929 raid on H.P. Lovecraft’s town of Innsmouth hold the key to an anomalous new event in the ocean, if only someone could communicate with them.
The ultimate snow day turns into the ultimate nightmare when it just doesn’t stop.
An extreme metal musician compels his harshest critic to live up to the hyperbole of his trolling.
With the last of a generation of grotesquely selfish city fathers on his deathbed, the residents of the town they doomed exercise their right to self-determination one last time.
As history repeats itself and the world shivers through a volcanic winter, a group gathers around the shore of a mountain lake to once again invoke the magic that created the world’s most famous monster.
With Skidding Into Oblivion, his fifth collection, award-winning author Brian Hodge brings together his most concentrated assortment yet of year’s best picks and awards finalists, with one thing in common:
It’s the end of the world as we know it . . . and we don’t feel fine at all.
"The Collected Short Stories of Freddie Prothero" by Peter Straub: A mere child yet a precocious writer, young Freddie records a series of terrifying encounters with an inhuman being that haunts his life and seems to predict his death. "Group of Thirty" by Jack Ketchum: When an award-winning horror writer on the downward slope of a long career receives an invitation to address the Essex County Science Fiction Group, he figures that he's got nothing to lose. He couldn't be more wrong. "Nancy" by Darynda Jones: Though she's adopted by the cool kids, the new girl at Renfield High School is most drawn to Nancy Wilhoit, who claims to be haunted. But it soon becomes apparent that poltergeists-and people-are seldom what they seem. "I Love You, Charlie Pearson" by Jacquelyn Frank: Charlie Pearson has a crush on Stacey Wheeler. She has no idea. Charlie will make Stacey see that he loves her, and that she loves him-even if he has to kill her to make her say it. "The Lone and Level Sands Stretch Far Away" by Brian Hodge: When Marni moves in next door, the stale marriage of Tara and Aidan gets a jolt of adrenaline. Whether it's tonic or toxic is another matter.
